Netcdf Worked Example

> Netcdf Worked Example

The script to read the netcdf file

%
% Read netcdf file sst05d19900108.nc. This netcdf file contains the sea-surface temperature
% field from the 8th January 1990 the begiining of the WOCE observation period. This data set is an
% arbitrary example taken from the
% WOCE Global Data V2 data set to illustrate the power of the netcdf command
% developed by Chuck Denham
%
%
% Load the data.
sst1=netcdf('/u/bindoff/sst05d19900108.nc')
%
% display the contents of the variables
%
for i=1:8
sst1{i}
end
%
% Do a test plot of the data using the pcolor function
%
latitude=sst1{'latitude'}(1:end);
longitude=sst1{'longitude'}(1:end);
sst=sst1{'sea_surface_temperature'}(1:end,1:end); pause
%
pcolor(sst(1:10:end,1:10:end)/100)
caxis([-2 32])
shading flat
%

Output from the script above from Matlab

>> sst_data
 
sst1 =
 
          NetCDF_File: '/u/bindoff/sst05d19900108.nc'
          nDimensions: 4
           nVariables: 8
    nGlobalAttributes: 6
      RecordDimension: ''
             nRecords: 0
           Permission: 'nowrite'
           DefineMode: 'data'
             FillMode: 'fill'
           MaxNameLen: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'woce_date'
            itsType: 'long'
      itsDimensions: 'time'
         itsLengths: 1
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 6
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'woce_time_of_day'
            itsType: 'float'
      itsDimensions: 'time'
         itsLengths: 1
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 5
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'julian_day_1990'
            itsType: 'short'
      itsDimensions: 'time'
         itsLengths: 1
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 6
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'depth'
            itsType: 'float'
      itsDimensions: 'time'
         itsLengths: 1
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 5
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'latitude'
            itsType: 'float'
      itsDimensions: 'latitude'
         itsLengths: 360
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 6
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'longitude'
            itsType: 'float'
      itsDimensions: 'longitude'
         itsLengths: 720
     itsOrientation: 1
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 6
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'sea_surface_temperature'
            itsType: 'short'
      itsDimensions: 'latitude, longitude'
         itsLengths: [360 720]
     itsOrientation: [1 2]
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 8
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

 
ans =
 
    NetCDF_Variable: 'bin_count'
            itsType: 'byte'
      itsDimensions: 'latitude, longitude'
         itsLengths: [360 720]
     itsOrientation: [1 2]
            itsVars: {}
         itsSrcsubs: {}
         itsDstsubs: {}
        nAttributes: 4
    itIsAutoscaling: 0
     itIsAutoNaNing: 0
       itIsUnsigned: 0
          itIsQuick: 0

>> whos
  Name            Size         Bytes  Class

  ans           360x720         3058  ncvar object
  i               1x1              8  double array
  latitude      360x1           2880  double array
  longitude     720x1           5760  double array
  sst           360x720      2073600  double array
  sst1            4-D           2290  netcdf object

Grand total is 260398 elements using 2087596 bytes

>> 
>> diary off

The script to read the netcdf file

Output from the script above from Matlab

And the figure created by the script